


PRESS HERE

by lovepeaceohana



Category: Transformers: Rescue Bots
Genre: Bodyswap, Breaking the Fourth Wall, Crack, Gen, Rule of Funny, Tropes, Wordcount: 1.000-5.000
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-16
Updated: 2014-12-16
Packaged: 2018-03-01 17:08:35
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,561
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2781041
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lovepeaceohana/pseuds/lovepeaceohana
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>An Out-of-Bot Experience! The Rescue Bots and the Burns Family members have swapped bodies.</p>
            </blockquote>





	PRESS HERE

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Dellessa](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Dellessa/gifts).



> Dellessa, I'm so glad to have been assigned to you, and hope that this is as fun for you to read as it was for me to write. :3 Happy Yuletide!
> 
> Thanks to my beta, moriann, for the last-minute assistance in cleaning this up.
> 
> Any similarities between this work and s3e8's "Switcheroo" are entirely unintentional, as this was completed and in beta at the time that episode aired.

“I thought we’d said no more pushing strange buttons,” Heatwave growls, optics still offline as he sprawls along the ground. The ground that feels cold, and far too hard. Come to think of it, the Rescue Bot feels like he has aches in parts he didn’t even know he _had_.

“Uuuuh,” comes Kade’s confused voice from somewhere high above him, sounding uncharacteristically tinny.

Heatwave refuses to think about that. “Not now, Kade,” he says instead. “If I get up, I have to see the damage. If I have to see the damage, I have to fix it. I’d like to lay here just a little while longer, if you don’t mind.”

“I MIND!” Blades shrieks. “What. Are. THESE? What - what _happened_ to us?!”

Dani’s voice, which also has an odd quality to it, sounds a little panicked as she says quickly, “I’ll explain later Blades, don’t worry. Just - look, put my - your - hands at your sides, all right?”

Heatwave dares to crack open an optic. The too-familiar shelves of the Best Left Forgotten room tower above him, the fluorescent lighting against the concrete walls and steel shelving units casting everything in a bluish tint. His display must be malfunctioning; there’s nothing, no data scans, no systems check. It’s unnerving. He hopes it comes back before he has to have a diagnostic done.  

Chief Charlie Burns is standing over him, a hand extended to help him up. “I’ve got it,” Heatwave says, waving off the chief’s odd gesture and catching sight of a pair of hands where his servos ought to be just as Chief says, “I believe you may desire the assistance,” in Chase’s voice.

He closes his eyes again with a groan. “Wake me up when the world makes sense.”

“Are we sure that’s Heatwave in there?” Boulder asks. No, _Graham_ , he realizes; Boulder himself is currently crouched over his prone form, pens poking out of the pocket protector of Graham’s striped shirt. Heatwave feels himself being prodded in the ribs. It’s an odd sensation, and he tries not to think too hard about how he knows what and where ribs are. Instead, he tries for a body scan, and of course comes up blank, because human bodies don’t have onboard system scans to tell them whether or not every part is operational.

“Yes, it’s me, and stop that,” he says to Boulder, who is still prodding him, and this time allows Chase to help him to his feet.

Cody is the only one unaffected, and he’s on the phone with Doc Greene already. Heatwave takes one experimental step, then another, and another. Kade’s body moves easily and confidently, and from the glances he sneaks at his teammates, the others are finding their borrowed chassis just as user-friendly. Blades is _skipping_.

He supposes it must be something to do with their line of work. Having to be in top physical condition must lend itself to spectacular proprioception and motor control. Even the utterly chaotic, undifferentiated instantaneous feedback from every sense at once that should be overwhelming, isn’t. Heatwave feels his teeth grit and realizes with a grimace that Kade’s actually more on top of things than Heatwave usually gives him credit for, if this is how he has to interface with the world on the regular.

The humans seem to be doing decently enough, too. Graham’s movements are a little stiff in Boulder’s bot mode, and the chief seems to have decided that stillness is the better part of not falling prone. Dani’s turning herself in circles, and Heatwave would bet diodes to diesel that she’s trying to figure out how the transformation works. Kade is …

“You know, I could get used to this,” Kade says, and Heatwave looks up to see Kade flexing his servos and - _eww_ \- voguing. “Long, and strong, and bound to get the friction on, heeeeeeeey ladies!”

“Kade, gross,” says Dani, grimacing. Her rotor blades twitch in annoyance.

“ _My_ anaconda don’t want none,” says Blades, proving himself categorically incapable of missing a pop culture reference no matter whose body he’s using. Then, uncertain, he adds, “I think. Dani, do you -”

“NO, BLADES.”

“Spark spare us all.” Heatwave puts his face into his palms, callused fingertips rough on Kade’s stubbled cheeks. He deliberately does not consider whether he is now responsible for Kade’s grooming.

Boulder is suddenly beside him, running a hand along his shoulders. “Don’t worry, Heatwave,” he says. Heatwave’s dismayed to hear that Boulder’s gentle voice sounds even more distant and dreamy than usual, and doesn’t even know what to do with the touching, so instead he holds very still as Boulder continues, saying, “I’m sure Doc can put us right.”

“Indeed! And I see I’ve arrived just in time,” says Doc, eyebrow raised as he strides into their section of the Best Left Forgotten shelves. Heatwave stands quickly, the others assembling behind him in a loose half-circle. “What happened?”

“We’re in a bit of a pickle, Doc.” Chief Burns’ warm voice coming from Chase’s voice box sends Doc’s eyebrows even higher.

“It appears as though each Rescue Bot has switched bodies with our respective human partner,” adds Chase, and if his speech patterns are still too formal, it’s at least less out of place than it might have been in Charlie’s mouth. “I had not realized that this was possible given the nature of the human body and what I have been given to understand of the human spirit.”

“Given the laws of the universe, it _shouldn’t_ be possible,” says Graham.

“Well, if anything could break the laws of the universe, it would be the items in this section,” Doc says, patting a nearby shelf fondly. “Weather machines that conjure fire tornadoes over open water, canned meat that turns people into ravening werebeasts. We’re certainly no stranger to the strange and unusual here in Griffin Rock.”

Chief Burns sighs. “That’s truer than I’d like to admit. Still, we have to find a way to switch back before anyone else finds out. Can you help us?”

Cody’s cheerful, “Of course he can!” is heartening. Doc’s expression is less so, although the way he snaps his gloves and adjusts his goggles makes up for it.

“Do you know which device caused this?” he asks. “And are all of you affected?”

“Everyone except me, Doc,” Cody says with a gesture toward the bots. “All of them switched, though. Heatwave with Kade, Dad with Chase, Dani with Blades, and Graham and Boulder.”

“I believe it is this one,” Chase replies, pointing to a small grey box with a flashing red button. "As it is the only device which appears currently active, it stands to reason that it may be the culprit."

Doc picks up the unassuming device and flips it around, examining it. “Are you sure?” he asks, prodding it. “I’ll check its files, then, to confirm its purpose, and to see whether there is information on how to reverse the procedure.”

“What should we do in the meantime, Doc?” Graham asks.

Doc grins. “Have fun! This is probably a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity!”

“It had better be,” Heatwave mutters.

 

 

* * *

 

“How many fluids do these people _have_?” Blades gasps, stumbling out of the firehouse bathroom. There’s tissue paper stuck to his shoe, which he tries in vain to shake off.

“Tell me about it.” Heatwave isn’t pleased with this particular feat of human engineering, either. Getting hungry, getting thirsty, he’s anticipated; they’ve watched Dani destroy enough meals together, after all, and Cody puts away an unexpected amount of food for his size. Chief Burns nearly always has a cup of coffee to hand. And though he’ll never admit it, he has noticed that Kade’s temper frays in direct proportion to his rumbling stomach.

He’s just never had cause to think of their waste disposal units until now.

And he’s never been quite so grateful to have scanned that firetruck, although with a wince he realizes he’ll never be able to think of firehoses in quite the same way.

“DO WE HAVE MORE OF THESE?” Boulder shouts, leaning out of the pantry and shaking an empty bag of pretzel chips and an equally empty bottle of - maple syrup? There are crumbs sticking to his fingertips and chin, and the puffy headphones he’s jammed onto his head do little to block the pounding of the music’s beat. Thankfully, Chase’s look of perfect disgust is enough to make Boulder turn sheepish.

“Sorry,” he says. He takes off the headphones, which only makes the music louder, but at least he stops shouting. “You guys, human sensory systems are just so amazing. Did you know that if you play music loud enough, human heartbeats will synchronize to the bass line? Or that humans have at least six different taste receptors on their tongues and they can’t taste things if they hold their noses because their sense of smell is so closely linked to their sense of taste?”

He holds his nose shut with one hand and licks the be-crumbed fingers of the other in demonstration. “Have you even tried these pretzels? They’re salty. Salty! Humans have taken a natural mineral and used it to enhance the flavor of their food! And the syrup is sweet, so when you put them together, it - it lights up your whole tongue with flavor!”

“You haven’t eaten them all, have you?” Blades cries, alarmed. “I was planning to use those to make ultimate pretzel-crusted sugar cookie toffee brownie bars! It might be my only chance!"

"Um." Boulder shoves the empty package behind him. "Maybe?"

“You know,” Heatwave says to Chase, looking away as Blades tackles Boulder into the pantry in a fit of frustrated culinary rage, “now would be a great time to roll out.”

Chase raises Chief Burns’ mug in a weary toast. “I too would appreciate the distraction. Although I would strongly prefer it come in the form of Doc Greene announcing he has found a solution to our situation. Two hours and seventeen minutes have already passed.”

As if on cue, the video screen in the kitchen flickers to life. “Guys, call on the emergency channel,” Cody says.

Heatwave blinks in surprise as his own face interrupts Cody’s relay. “I’m on it!” Kade says. “Rescue Bots, roll to the rescue!”

“We need to know what the emergency is first, son,” Chief Burns interrupts, and Heatwave has the distinct pleasure of watching Chase’s face work to keep from spitting out his drink in shock. It doesn’t sit well, seeing yourself from the outside.

Doc Greene cuts in, looking far too cheerful to be interrupting an emergency relay. “I’m afraid there’s been a hold-up in the process of restoring you to your rightful bodies. Evan and Myles have taken the device you gave me to study -”

“That’s all I need to hear,” Heatwave says, standing. “Blades, Boulder, get your drivetrain in gear, we’re rollin’ out. Doc, which way did they go?”

“Well, they’re still here, actually,” says Doc. “They took the device, but it changed them into kittens. I’d guess they’re about eight to ten weeks old, given their size.”

There’s a pause, and then Chief Burns asks, “So how is this an emergency, precisely, Doc?”

Cody reappears on the screen. “No, Doc’s not the emergency, exactly, he just vid-called me at the same time so I patched him in. It’s Mrs. Neederlander - she says Mister Pettypaws is up the tree again, and she can’t get him down.”

“Oh good!” beams Doc. “You can ask her for some catnip while you’re there. And then meet me at my lab. We have some testing to do.”

 

 

* * *

 

“Invocation: bodyswap. Status: active,” says the device, once it’s scanned Heatwave.

“Deactivate status,” Doc Greene commands.

“Inconceivable. Status will auto-complete when the invocation has run,” says the device.

“Reverse status,” Doc tries again.

“Inconceivable. Status will auto-complete when the invocation has run.”

Doc’s files indicate that their device is BLF 0037.3, the Random Trope Generator. There are at least three pages of notes, most of which are blacked out, with the exception of an impotent warning at the top:

**EXTREMELY DANGEROUS! DO NOT ENGAGE! UNPREDICTABLE EFFECTS MAY OCCUR.**

“If it’s so dangerous, why was it left just laying around on the shelf?” Charlie asks, voice cross as he leans down to inspect the useless file. Chase’s expression mirrors his, eyebrows drawn down. “Doesn’t anybody on this island understand containment procedures for dangerous equipment?”

“Well, it _was_ in the Best Left Forgotten room,” Doc says amiably. “Exit status.”

“Inconceivable. Status will auto-complete when the invocation has run.”

“What does that even mean?” Blades complains. “At twelfth stroke of midnight we change back?”

“Error: incorrect invocation; see end conditions for invocation: when the clock strikes twelve. Current invocation: bodyswap. Status: active,” says the device.

Heatwave rolls his eyes. “Oh, that’s helpful.”

“Actually, that’s very helpful,” Doc says, eyes wide, his racing thoughts nearly visible in them. “Call up the description for bodyswap,” he says. “Maybe it can tell us what the end conditions are for the invocation!”

“Error. That is cheating,” says the device.

A collective groan rises from the group. Sunlight streams in through the lab’s floor-to-ceiling windows, and the kittens chase dust motes illuminated by the beams. After a few moments, Chief Burns collects himself, saying, “All right, team, we can figure this out. We have this device. As far as we know, it can turn people into kittens, and it can force people and robots to swap bodies.”

“And it has an invocation called when the clock strikes twelve,” Chase adds.

“Maybe it can tell us about the other invocation,” Cody suggests. “It said that asking about your invocation was cheating. What if you ask it about a different one?”

“That’s a great idea, Cody,” says Doc. “Call up the end conditions for when the clock strikes twelve, if you please.”

“End conditions: when the clock strikes twelve,” says the device. “A prominent clock strikes the twelfth toll of the midnight hour, signalling the end of the recipient’s quest and inviting judgement on the success or failure of that quest.”

Dani startles backward so quickly she nearly trips over her heel struts. “Okay, that’s creepy and invasive,” she says.

“I agree,” Boulder says, frowning for the first time since the switch. “That is how most stories with that theme end, though: the heroes have until midnight to get something done, and they either succeed or fail horribly.” He pats the kitten who’s fallen asleep in his lap; whether it’s Evan or Myles is anyone’s guess. “So we just need to figure out how bodyswap stories end.”

Blades brightens. “Oh, there’s the one movie where the mother and her daughter switch places for the day? They spend all day trying to be each other and they are _terrible_ at it!” His gleeful chuckle is completely out of place on Dani’s features; sure enough, Dani is scowling at him. Blades misinterprets her look, though, and quickly adds, “They do switch back, though, at the end. It has a happy ending!”

“Hey, I remember that one!” Kade says, leaning in a little and grinning. “That one was funny! When they go on the date but it’s the mother pretending to be a teenager and she’s so gross because she’s tryin’ to scare off the guy!”

Heatwave can’t help the smirk that crosses his face. He blames Kade’s muscle memory. “Wow, Kade, I didn’t know you had it in you. Didn’t you call those kinds of movies ‘chick flicks’?”

Kade scowls. "Hey, that is exactly the kind of attitude that's not helping anyone right now, okay?"

Blades raises a timid hand. “Does that mean somebody has to go on a date?” he asks.

Dani’s abrupt, “Absolutely not!” is only barely louder than the cacophony that erupts, Dani arguing with Blades and Kade, and all three of them arguing with Chief Burns. Boulder and Graham share a glance and a shrug. Cody claps his hands over his ears, face uncharacteristically red. Chase, for lack of more appropriate protocol, mimics him.

“Now, now,” sings out Doc Greene. His eyes twinkle. Heatwave suspects he’s enjoying himself far too much. “Everyone, calm down! It doesn’t say that you _must_ go on a date.”

“We could try it,” Blades says. “I mean, hypothetically. What if one of us is too anxious to go on a date with someone, but now that we’ve switched bodies, someone else can do it instead. And then it won’t be awkward!” He beams expectantly at Dani.

Kade elbows his sister. “Hah! Taylor hasn’t taken you out yet?”

Blades looks crestfallen. “That’s not what I -”

Straightening up, Dani shoots back, “We’ve gone on plenty of dates, thank you -”

“Look, I’d say that we’re all adults here, and that’s her own business,” interrupts Chief, stepping between the two of them. “But Cody’s still here. So let’s keep it family-friendly, okay?”

“We don’t even know that sending someone on a date will resolve the invocation,” Graham says. “And it doesn’t make sense that it would end it for all of us, if only one goes.”

“What do you mean, Graham?” Boulder asks.

Graham’s frown sits heavily on Boulder’s faceplate. “None of it makes sense, actually. According to this data - and Boulder, I had no idea you had always-on satellite access! - bodyswapping is usually invoked for, say, moralistic purposes, to teach characters to understand and appreciate each other better. But that presupposes that they already take each other for granted. And - I don’t think any of us take each other for granted.”

Heatwave can feel his skin heating and prickling, and wishes he knew what it meant. Humans and their psychosomatic responses.

“And we still don’t know how this happened,” Graham continues. “Frankly, the last thing I remember before we all came to was working on some quadratic formulae in my lab. And Boulder, didn’t you go to the lake to paint?”

That pulls Heatwave up short. Now that Graham’s mentioned it, he doesn’t have a clear idea of how he came to be in the Best Left Forgotten section, either. He remembers being in the bunker facing off against the practice dummies, Kade having been left to monitor the emergency channel. Slowly, the others come to the same realization: none of them were anywhere near the Hall of Inspiration, until suddenly they were, and in the wrong bodies to boot. BLF 0037.3’s bright red “PRESS HERE” button blinks back at them innocently, and keeps its secrets.

“Well, isn’t _that_ a kick in the lugnuts,” Heatwave mutters.

“Perhaps now is not the time to give our attention to the mystery of our circumstances,” Chase offers quietly. “Pressing as that matter may seem, our efforts may be more fruitful if first we focus on returning to our proper forms.”

“What if we pushed the button again?” Cody asks. “Could we overwrite this program with a different one?”

“I’m not sure that’s a good idea,” Chief Burns says, a trifle uneasily. “But it’s something to keep in mind if nothing else will work.”

“It would be helpful if these two would change back,” Doc Greene says. He drags a bit of theoretical string - his latest invention - across the floor for the kitten who’s still awake. “Then they could tell us how they did it.”

The kitten pounces after the string, and obstinately refuses to change back into either Myles or Evan even after several minutes have passed. Doc tuts something about watched pots and continues to drag the string as he moves into another area of his lab. The kitten follows.

“So it’s back to dates, then?” Blades asks.

“Unless you’d rather sit around and talk about our … feelings,” Heatwave says, and the shudder that races through Kade’s shoulders may be involuntary but it feels appropriate.

Boulder perks up a little. “I understand that can be very cathartic,” he says. “According to my research, humans have entire professions dedicated to processing their feelings. They must like it, or they wouldn’t do it.”

The Burnses exchange glances. “That’s not exactly the way it goes, Boulder,” Graham says. “You bots have got all these fantastic systems that can tell you anything about yourselves that you need to know, so I imagine it’s a lot more straightforward for you. But for humans, it takes a lot of coaching to be able to understand where an emotion is even coming from, much less to know how to deal with it effectively.”

Blades nods. “Bots have EPUs. Humans get feels.”

“That sounds distinctly unpleasant,” Chase says. He rubs at his temples, the way Heatwave’s seen Chief do several times. “If we must talk about our ‘feels,’ then, I for one am happy to offer that I do believe I have underestimated you, Chief Burns. The strength of will and character it takes to perform the duties I have seen you undertake in such a vulnerable, confusing chassis is far greater than I had ever imagined, and I am deeply impressed with your ability to persevere.”

A rare smile lights Chase’s mouthplate as Charlie accepts the compliment. “And having been given a rather intimate look at your programming, Chase, it’s a miracle to me that you Bots make an effort at all with us. I’m proud to be your partner, and grateful you continue to choose to be mine.”

Kade makes a gagging sound. “Puh- _lease_ , let’s lay off the oogies, all right? Yeesh.”

“Invocation: bodyswap. Status: complete,” says BLF 0037.3, and then Chase and Chief Burns are both shaking their heads and stumbling a little. There’s a moment before the others understand, and another moment beyond that in which it becomes clear that the invocation has not ended for all of them.

“No,” Kade says, voice unexpectedly small.

Chief Burns, back to himself, only smiles. “Yes.”

“You could always go on a date,” Boulder offers, and for once Heatwave can’t tell if he’s being entirely serious or just a little mischievous. He pitches his voice low into his comm. Graham goes silent and still, and the two lock eyes.

“Invocation: bodyswap. Status: complete.”

“NO,” Kade says, this time in a shout.

“Don’t be a wuss, Kade,” Heatwave says, although he may as well be talking to himself, and for once he’s willing to acknowledge that. He fumbles for his next words. “Look, we both know this isn’t easy. Or pretty. But the truth is that Chase is right. I didn’t realize how tough you humans are. You do all this” - and despite his currently small stature, the wide circling of his arms makes perfectly clear his meaning - “without the benefit of any of the risk assessment systems or instantaneous calculations that we can do. Not to mention all this … bio … stuff.”

He can feel Kade’s lip trying to curl, and forces it straight again through sheer willpower. He doesn’t know that there’s anything he can do about what feels like all the blood in Kade’s body trying to crawl into his neck and face, so he ignores it and pushes onward.

“I don’t know how you do it. But … I’m glad you do. And knowing it, maybe I’ll go a little easier on you next time you do something stupid.”

He waits, but there’s no word from BLF 0037.3, and so he looks back to Kade, who’s glaring at the ground fiercely enough to bore holes with his optics.

“Come on, Kade,” Dani says encouragingly, with a punch in the shoulder for good luck.

“I guess … you’re not so bad,” he grunts, looking away while he grunts it.

“Invocation: bodyswap. Status: complete.”

“Oh come on, that’s not-”

Heatwave’s back in his own chassis before he can complete the thought, much less get the rest of the sentence out. He’s so distracted by the sudden appearance of his own, familiar HUD that he almost forgets to be angry at the injustice of having to be so embarrassed without at least getting to see Kade suffer the same humiliation.

To his surprise, there’s a video message waiting for him. From himself, with a timestamp of just moments ago. He calls it up, and watching it, understands exactly why the Random Trope Generator accepted it. He's touched.

That doesn’t stop him from sharing it with the other bots, of course. It’s only fair. He knows Kade will understand.

 

 

* * *

 

EPILOGUE

“I just don’t understand what we’re doing wrong.”

Dani’s so frustrated she could cry, except the bots don’t have an app for that, or a mechanism, for that matter. After deciding that Kade and Heatwave proved you didn’t need an audience to do it, she and Blades had secreted themselves away in the firehouse bunker, and spent hours watching _Cupcake Wars_ and talking about everything even remotely relevant to their circumstances. It's uncharitable, but Dani thinks that if they spend any more time down here exchanging uncomfortable emotional intimacies they might as well go announce their banns in the paper.

Blades looks just as upset, but puts his chin up anyway and crosses his arms. “I still think the date thing will work. Because this? Is obviously _not_ working.”

He uncrosses them just as suddenly, and adds hastily, “Not that I don’t enjoy spending time with you, I mean! I finally feel like I’m getting to know the real Dani. ...which is turning out to be really useful since I’m still stuck in your chassis!”

“There must be something we’re missing,” she says, and shuts off the television, ignoring Blades’ protests. If she pretends she didn’t hear him, she won’t have to slap him, right? Especially since it seems to her that he’s been doing just fine in her “chassis.” Not that she hasn’t enjoyed being a bot. And a helicopter! Flying them back from Doc’s lab is an experience she’ll remember for the rest of her life, and if she’s honest with herself she’s not sure that being just a pilot again will ever be enough. Maybe she’ll take Taylor up on those flightsuit lessons after all. But she can’t do that until she has her body back.

Making up her mind, she holds out an imperative hand to Blades, leans down, and pops open her cockpit. “Get in, loser. We’re going flying.”

She takes them back to Doc’s lab after clearing it with the others, and, apologizing profusely for the lateness of the hour, begs to borrow BLF 0037.3, and sets it to scan them both again.

“Define invocation,” she orders, and her tone brooks no argument.

“Invocation: rule of funny,” says the Random Trope Generator. “Definition: any violation of continuity, logic, physics, or common sense is permissible if the result gets enough of a laugh.”

Blades makes a strangled screeching noise that Dani didn’t know she was capable of producing. “WHAT.”

“Status: active.”

“ _WHAT_.”

Dani sighs. It looks like it’ll be awhile before she gets to do anything with Taylor that requires getting her body back. Kade will never _not_ think this is funny. Which probably means she should cancel her plans to go with Taylor to the hot air balloon launch in two weeks. She’d been so excited for it, too; the timing had been perfect.

Thinking about it, she sighs again. The timing. Right. One more thing she’ll have to explain to Blades. A sudden, wicked little grin lights her face. He won’t like this at _all_.

Well. At least the Rule of Funny doesn’t say she can’t be laughing, too.


End file.
